Youngsters

It's been about two months since I stepped down from SPACE and I'm happy to report that it's been a good time. I've certainly missed the SPACE persona - the one about responsibility and leading and a community of wonderful students. But overall, not too much has changed about that since our relationships with these people transcend a formal 'ministry.'

The past few months have also included some evaluation. I've posted a bit about that before. What I haven't written about before is our wrestling with the question of our particular local church and whether we think it's the right fit for us anymore. That is a tough question to ask - it's also tough to tell people you are even asking that question. After investing the past 11 years at GCC, the past five with SPACE and four before that with a small group of high school boyz, and now having our own personal kids who are almost old enough to be in the middle school ministry, walking away from this kind of community will never be easy. However, we'd like to think that we are committed to being fully engaged. Walking away from something you don't believe in any more would be better than just attending. If you don't believe in it, you can certainly still show up - and part of you will die in the process.

In God's really funny sense of humor, around the same time I stepped down from SPACE, I was invited, with a group of other young men, to be a part of a GCC elder intern experiment. The experiment lasts for one year and is a chance to see if serving on the elder team is a good fit for the specific young men as well as the existing team. At the end of the year, either party can choose to decline. And of course, it would be a mistake to join something like that if you don't feel called to your particular community. So on to it - I've signed up - and yes, I'm probably as surprised as you are. Instead of many good opportunities to be involved in next - an IMN cohort, pursue an MAGL [way too much work], Vision Trekk guide, start a nonprofit, volunteer efforts for a mission agency [and some of these might get done anyway], there it is. In fact, I'm pretty sure some of the missions coaching [very similar to this past weekend at Salisbury Cru] will still continue because well... that's pretty essential to me.

I suspect it will be a cool opportunity to use some of my experience, talents and passion for leadership for our community. The nice thing is that it is an experiment or trial. Other than that, I have no idea what I'm getting myself into [like what's new about that...]

What I do know is that for all of her faults, for all the things many of us hate about the sterile, irrelevant, country club idea of "church", for the crisis the American church is currently in, I still believe that the Church is worth serving, leading and sacrificing for. And for that battle - for the essence of what God intends GCC to become - I'm all in.